steps in the way

I know I shouldn't complain but I do anyway, I'm only human. I honestly forget how old I really am until my body tells me. A week ago I fell. Yes this girl fell. Then I thought about how many times I've fell in my lifetime that I can remember. It seems that every time I fall, steps are involved.  The first one that I can remember at the moment was when I was working downtown. I was leaving the porch of our home in Dallas and I was around nineteen years old.  I missed a step and fell ripping my pantyhose down my knee. I don't remember what happened next just remembered being mad at the fact that I tore my pantyhose and I was now going to be late for work. These things were mandatory when showing leg. The second time I fell was here in my home going down the steps to take the trash to the curb. I remember sitting down in the dark for a while just crying because I was mad at myself for doing so. It really hurt, I thought I had broken my ankle. Then last week I accompanied my sister to the doctors office and on the way out, I kept looking straight and forgot there were steps. I twisted my ankle as I fell on my behind. It hurt but I was more concerned and glad that it wasn't my sister who was carrying a baby in her belly. Then again things like this only happen to me.

I took this photo just minuets before I fell

I had hurt my knee running and it hasn't totally healed, and now my ankle hurts. I feel like my body is telling me that I am getting really old, especially when I feel like I wobble when I walk. I am not mad that it hurts but upset at the fact that these are signs of not being young and not being able to just get back up and like nothing happened. Normally by this time I'd be pain free.

Towards the end of my shift today I ended helping a man that was special and he just didn't know it. He walked hunched over. Told me his story. Here was a man standing five foot one not because he was old but because he had back surgery. The surgery went wrong that he had to go back and have part of his ribs removed to help him walk and that is why he now walks like if  his waist is on his chest. Here stood a man that was once five foot nine. Yes, five foot nine now five foot one. He was still walking. Because of his waist he forgets what size to get in pants. Here was an old man by himself and all I could tell him was to not give up, he is not a quitter. He smiled and said "No, I am not".

He made me feel horrible about feeling all damaged and happy that he was still surviving his everyday tasks. After he left a lady heard our conversation and started to almost cry. She saw him walk away with his walker and couldn't look me in the face from bursting into tears so then I tried to hold mine back. We both started to fill our eyes with tears.

I'd had a rough day with people and the way I was mad at myself when the last thirty minutes of my workday God send me an elderly angel to tell me its okay.